DFW International Airport? In Decline? (Houston, Dallas: leasing, income, live)

[CMDallas]

Ok
so I know DFW is a prominent airport.
But I've noticed the amount of international flights we have is very small.
Despite being the Hub of the Largest Airline in the world, we have 2 flight to the far east Seoul and Tokyo. Only one of those coming from AA. 4 to Europe: Paris, Frankfurt, London, and Amsterdam
Only a little over 20 go to Latin America, which is not bad. But we Miss key cities like Bogota and Lima...
We've lost many international routes, a couple years back we lost direct service to Bangkok, Tel Aviv, and Nagoya.

To make things worse, Delta dropped it's hub at DFW a few years back.

We should have a flight to China and more to Europe, right? I hear the Airport has been advocating. But I think our airport is behind in terms of international flights.

I mean Houston for example has flights like(ones that we don't have):
Moscow, Singapore, Beijing, Lima, Bogota, Doha, and are advocating for direct routes to India, Finland, Korea, and Algeria.
DFW is advocating for flights to Hong Kong and lesser know Chinese cities.

AA has no interest in letting any other airline set up a Hub at DFW, and our airport is losing to competition both close and far. Other cities that are on par or even declining have stronger airports. We have alot of cargo, but here are some flights we don't have:

Detroit for example has flights to Manila, Osaka, Nagoya, Taipei, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, and Amman.

Atlanta has Tel Aviv, Dubai, Athens, Barcelona, Copenhagan, Dakar, Dublin, Düsseldorf, Fortaleza, Guayaquil, Johannesburg, Kuwait, Lima, Madrid, Milan, Prague, Moscow, Mumbai, Munich, Shanghai, Stockholm, and all these other cities.

It seems to me that DFW is falling behind, a strong airport will make it easier for international business to come.
And Right now...it seems like its hard...

What is our future, is it in our power to advocate for a more international flights?

[nsumner]

It's my understanding that AA is very difficult to negotiate with in Dallas. They have very high fees that they charge other airlines when they want to use their gates etc. here. Same thing that happened at Lovefield when other airlines got pushed out by AA.

Naima

[SeaToby]

Originally Posted by CMDallas

Ok
so I know DFW is a prominent airport.
But I've noticed the amount of international flights we have is very small.
Despite being the Hub of the Largest Airline in the world, we have 2 flight to the far east Seoul and Tokyo. Only one of those coming from AA. 4 to Europe: Paris, Frankfurt, London, and Amsterdam
Only a little over 20 go to Latin America, which is not bad. But we Miss key cities like Bogota and Lima...
We've lost many international routes, a couple years back we lost direct service to Bangkok, Tel Aviv, and Nagoya.

To make things worse, Delta dropped it's hub at DFW a few years back.

We should have a flight to China and more to Europe, right? I hear the Airport has been advocating. But I think our airport is behind in terms of international flights.

I mean Houston for example has flights like(ones that we don't have):
Moscow, Singapore, Beijing, Lima, Bogota, Doha, and are advocating for direct routes to India, Finland, Korea, and Algeria.
DFW is advocating for flights to Hong Kong and lesser know Chinese cities.

AA has no interest in letting any other airline set up a Hub at DFW, and our airport is losing to competition both close and far. Other cities that are on par or even declining have stronger airports. We have alot of cargo, but here are some flights we don't have:

Detroit for example has flights to Manila, Osaka, Nagoya, Taipei, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, and Amman.

Atlanta has Tel Aviv, Dubai, Athens, Barcelona, Copenhagan, Dakar, Dublin, Düsseldorf, Fortaleza, Guayaquil, Johannesburg, Kuwait, Lima, Madrid, Milan, Prague, Moscow, Mumbai, Munich, Shanghai, Stockholm, and all these other cities.

It seems to me that DFW is falling behind, a strong airport will make it easier for international business to come.
And Right now...it seems like its hard...

What is our future, is it in our power to advocate for a more international flights?

Dallas' problem for more international flights is down the road a few hours, its called Houston. Between the two airports one can almost go anywhere. However, I don't like long flights, anything over three hours. I would rather take the train or a cruise ship traveling abroad.

One of the aunts was a Australian war bride. They flew to Australia about every ten years. She and my uncle always spent a day or two in Hawaii, breaking up the very long flight.

[CMDallas]

But These international flights really make business in the DFW area all that more appealing.
That is why IMO we have a Korean district (the only official one) and not Chinese or Indians ones.
Taking a connecting flight is a real turn off, and so while it may not affect us, it affects our economy.
So while we can take a flight to Houston or LA, businesses go?
Why Dallas, and not just Los Angeles...

[SeaToby]

I understand what you are saying. Unfortunately, Dallas does not have the population of Chicago, LA, or New York. Two of the three cities I mention are pushing 25 million, the other 10 million. Whereas Dallas and Houston are pushing 5 or 6 million each, they are not pushing 10 million individually.

The good news is that the airlines are moving to more flights from different cities, in difference to their hub and spoke systems. While Texans may have to use a short hop to either major city for a long international flight, its only a half hour hop. We suffer from the same difficulties as Liverpool and Manchester, UK. While more international flights are reaching Liverpool and Manchester, if you wish to fly abroad, one more than likely has to fly a short hop to London.

Plus its been my experience getting visas many nations may have a foreign office in both of these two cities in Texas, but far more have only one.

[loves2read]

you also need to consider the physical fact that DFW is in the middle of the US...an airliner can carry a finite amount of fuel and cargo/passengers...the time it takes to fly a round trip expands related to the distance--it is much more difficult to schedule crew time for flying DFW to Japan as it is DFW to Hawaii

DFW does have a strong tie to AA--that was not seen as problem when AA was doing so well--but it definitely has prevented some of the cheaper airlines from expanding and shaking up cost of service...

DFW has also gotten lot of money from leasing its grounds for Barnett Shale drilling---it will have a source of income not tied to airline traffic--what it will do with that remains to be seen--some of the decisions as to how the airport staff have used expenses is proving not very cost conscious...

[Philip T]

Waiting to see DFW turned into a shopping mall . . . .

Plenty of parking, yunno.

[momof2dfw]

Two Words: American Airlines.

Because AA will fight ANY airline that wants to provide any kind of better or less expensive fares that wants to come into DFW Int'l. They want the market here and they want to dictate it. Look how many MILLIONS they spent to run Legend out of Love Field (I LOVED Legend). A few years later the gov't (with OUR money) was bailing out AA because of 9/11. If they would have taken care of their OWN business and stopped worrying about what everyone else is doing they would have had the money to survive WITHOUT a gov't bailout. I'm sure in the next year or so we are going to see another bailout with OUR money from the gov't being given to AA.

[Philip T]

Originally Posted by momof2dfw

Two Words: American Airlines.

Three words: American Airlines S ucks

[momof2dfw]

Originally Posted by Philip T

Three words: American Airlines S ucks

True.